


Isaac Newton Sucks

by dyingpoet



Series: Sprace one shots [32]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Modern Era, race is cocky and tired, spot is hopelessly pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 18:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17924234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Spot needs to get tutored in physics, and his tutor doesn't really seem to be into it





	Isaac Newton Sucks

**Author's Note:**

> hey so most of Race's dialogue is directly lifted from my own rants from when i tutor so basically this is me shamelessly projecting

“He’s over there.”

Spot was waved off by the girl who’d been assigning tutors to kids, having waited at the front for about five minutes while she stared at a clipboard and glanced around the room in silence. Supposedly the school’s tutor center was a welcoming atmosphere, that was its whole advertising thing anyway, but yeah, Spot wasn’t feeling it. 

Basically he was failing physics, like actual, genuine, ‘I have an F’ level failing, and his teacher had assigned him to get tutored during his normal study hall. And so, after four years of high school Spot had broken his streak of never having set foot near a tutor. He didn’t like them, all the ones in his classes had that whole ‘holier than thou’ mentality, and he really didn’t want to have to deal with one of them everyday. But, as his counselor had reminded him, it was either that or take the class again in the summer.

With that at the back of his mind, Spot looked in the direction the girl had pointed and caught sight of a kid in the back. He was hunched over a notebook, scribbling at something intently while sipping at a Red Bull with his other hand. 

Holding back a groan, Spot started for his table, checking his phone for the time. Half an hour until the period was over. 

Once he got to the table, Spot stood in front of the kid for a second, rocking back and forth on his heels as he waited for him to look up; that didn’t happen. For the life of him Spot couldn’t place who he was either, he had to be a senior if he was in the second level of physics, but nothing about him rang a bell. Oh well, it was a big school, he figured. 

But after a solid fifteen second without the kid even glancing up, Spot cleared his throat. 

“Hey, I think she assigned me to you for physics.”

When the kid looked up, actually flinching initially like he was surprised at Spot’s presence, Spot tossed his head in the direction of the front. 

The kid looked toward the front, sighing before moving his stuff off of the other side of his table. “Oh, yeah sorry about that, they don’t tell us when we have someone to tutor, just kinda spring it.”

Sitting down then, Spot nodded tightly, taking out his binder and notes for physics and flipping to the stuff they’d just tested on. Projectile motion, he’d failed the last test but his teacher was letting him retake it next week. 

“That’s cool, so I have to retake this test next week-”

“Projectile motion?”

Spot nodded. “Yeah, just like, solving for velocity and distance and stuff.”

The kid hummed knowingly, leaning forward to get a look at what Spot had down in his notes, when the girl from the front walked back up to the two of them.

Spot looked up at her, and then down to the kid he was with, who looked like he was ignoring her. 

She didn’t even glance at Spot, instead loudly clearing her throat and kicking at the chair leg of the tutor. “Did you do the intro, Race? Like you’re supposed to?”

The kid, Race apparently, turned his head to look at the girl, slumping back in his chair as he did so. “Damn, I must have forgot, Katherine, thank god you reminded me before it was too late.”

The sarcasm dripped off his words and Spot had to keep himself from smiling, Katherine looked pretty pissed, or maybe exasperated, it seemed like the two of them went through this kind of think a lot. 

“You’re supposed to say the thing so that you can connect with the kid.”

Race placed a hand over his heart and looked between Spot and Katherine with exaggeratedly raised eyebrows. “The  _ kid _ ? That kid has a name, Kath, and it’s-”

He snapped his fingers and looked at Spot while trailing off.

“Spot.”

“Spot,” Race exclaimed, “yes, Spot, a great name.”

When Race slammed his palm on the table for emphasis maybe, Katherine looked between the two of them; Spot was leaning forward with his head lying in his outstretched arms, and Race, who was still slumped back, and had his chin raised a bit defiantly at her. Yeah, she looked pretty over the whole thing. 

“Y’know what, whatever Race,” she snapped, “just do your job.”

With that, she turned on her heel and walked back toward the front, leaving a confused Spot and a quietly cursing Race. 

“She, uh, always like that?”

Race rolled his eyes as he ripped out a sheet of paper from Spot’s notebook harder than was strictly needed. “Pretty much, she doesn’t really like me.”

Before Spot could add anything on to that, Race launched into the physics, making up a problem and going through the steps with Spot. He was actually pretty good at teaching once he got down to it. 

“Do you get the thing with resolving it into components? Like with sine and cosine?”

Race blew a piece of hair out of his face after he said that, and Spot had to blink a few times before he fully processed what Race had said. “Oh, uh, yeah, it’s making it into a triangle and using the angles and stuff.”

Letting out a yawn, Race nodded and arched his back, turning to look at the clock over the door. “And we still got about five minutes.”

“Decent,” Spot said, starting to pack up his things. He noticed Race wasn’t really on his phone a lot, at least in here. He’d started doodling absentmindedly on the page he was teaching Spot on, and rested his chin on the hand he wasn’t writing with. He yawned a lot too, not that Spot was paying all  _ that  _ much attention, though. 

Feeling sort of rude being on his phone with Race sitting right there, Spot tapped on the table a little bit before attempting conversation. “So, do you like tutoring here?”

Race gave him such an exhausted look Spot laughed a little bit. 

“I just do it for the community service hours, man,” Race said, “the whole system is super messed up, I hate it.”

“What do you mean?”

Race raked a hand through his hair and slumped back in his chair. “I dunno, it’s just like, how old are you?”

Spot cocked his head, not really seeing where this was going. “Eighteen.”

“Yeah, exactly, like, you’re an  _ adult _ , man. I don’t have any authority over you, hell, I’m  _ younger  _ than you, you don’t have to listen to me if you don’t want to.”

He sort of had a point, and Spot leaned forward on his elbows as he started ranting more and more. When he got into it he spoke really fast, and Spot could hear a decent New York accent on a couple of words. 

“I mean like, they have seventeen, eighteen year old kids come in here and have kids their own age on their back just watching them do homework, it’s so demeaning.”

He looked at Spot, who nodded quickly. “Yeah, I guess it works if the kids want to be here, but if you don’t wanna work, you aren’t going to.”

“Exactly,” Race agreed, grinning as he sat forward. “See you get it, and since you’re assigned we can talk shit during this period until they let you go.”

Spot chuckled a bit at that, the ringing of the bell for the end of the period cutting him off.

He watched as race swung his bag unto his shoulder and pulled a phone out of the pocket, plugging in a pair of earphones and putting them in. 

Again, why Spot was watching him so intently was up to interpretation, but Race looked so focused he almost asked him what song he was listening to. Almost. 

“Okay, see you tomorrow,” Race said after finding whatever song he was looking for.

Spot stood up himself, reaching down to pick up his own bag. “Yeah, see you.”

He watched Race walk out and disappear into the hallway, taking a second to sigh and press the heel of his hands into his eyes. He really wasn’t going to get much done during this hour.

* * *

 

“Oh my god, I  _ know _ !”

Race leaned his head back and started groaning after that, and Spot laughed quietly, starting to copy down a practice problem when he saw Katherine glaring at the two of them out of the corner of his eye. He had been right about not getting much done. 

“He’s just so  _ boring _ ,” Race continued, leaning to look over at Spot’s work. “It’s like-change that one to cosine-it’s like he doesn’t even care about teaching at this point.”

“It’s so sad,” Spot agreed. He shoved his notebook forward. “Is this one right?”

Race read what he had down, his lips mouthing the steps of the math to himself. He did that a lot. “Yeah! You’re getting better with knowing what your givens are.”

Spot grinned. “This makes way more sense that what he explains during class, you actually go through the steps, he just skips over them.”

“It’s such bad teaching,” Race said with a shake of his head, “and he wonders why kids do so bad on his tests.”

“I think I’m gonna do okay on the retake, though.”

Race nodded exaggeratedly. “Oh, definitely, you’ll be out of here within a week, I bet.”

Spot laughed, but honestly felt a little bit deflated. He’d been here for a couple days and honestly found it way more fun than most of his classes. It seemed like Katherine hated him by association, but he didn’t really care, Race was funny and smart and in the very back of his mind he knew he’d miss him once he stopped coming in. 

Clearing his throat, Spot shook his head a little bit to clear the thought. “Yeah, I bet.”

* * *

 

This time Race was late, it wasn’t even going on five minutes yet, but Spot had heard Katherine complaining loudly near the group of teachers that ran the place, and he was a little bit nervous for the guy. 

Pulling out his physics stuff, Spot started running through the kinematic equations, and looked over what notes he had from the last couple days, but he wasn’t really paying much attention, his eye was on the door.

A smart move, it seemed, because a second or so later, Race walked in, the door slamming loudly behind him in contrast with the oddly quiet room; it was slow today. And  _ damn _ , was he something to look at right then. 

He had on an old Hawaiian shirt, and had tied it up in the front so that if it was an inch or so higher, it would have definitely counted as a crop top. He also had a pair of sunglasses perched on the top of his head for some unknown reason, and was sipping a ridiculous sized iced coffee.

Without even acknowledging Katherine, who had already started for the two of them, he swung his bag down onto his and Spot’s table, and took another gulp of coffee.

“Sorry I’m late-”

Spot opened his mouth to reply when Katherine cut him off, storming up and coming to a stop in front of Race. 

“Where were you?”

Race looked blankly at her, taking a decidedly longer sip from his coffee. “What do you mean?”

“You, where were you, Race?” she asked, drawing out her words longer like she was talking to a kid. “You know you can’t show up late, you’re assigned to someone.”

“He hasn’t been late the whole time he’s been tutoring me,” Spot offered from behind Katherine’s back. 

She ignored him, but Race smiled at him lightly. “See? Not ever late.”

Katherine let out a groan, clawing her hands in the hair and tapping her foot harshly on the ground. “Honestly, Race? Just go, you obviously don’t want to be here, just leave. We have enough people.”

Race, to his immense credit, was completely unfazed by this threat, and leaned back against the wall their table was set against, staring intently at Katherine. “You can’t do that, Kath.”

“Yes I can,” Katherine snapped. She gestured to the table of teachers in the corner, half of whom weren’t even looking. “They told me if you’re causing problems, you can leave.”

Spot was gaping at her and the whole situation, and stood up himself. “Hey, he hasn’t been causing any problems.”

Race waved him off though, grabbing his bag and swinging it over his shoulder once again. “No, y’know what, clearly  _ I’m  _ what’s wrong with this whole system you got going, I  _ totally  _ get it. I’m gonna go, and you guys can have fun with your weird power trip tutoring thing.”

Katherine snorted, arms crossed, as Race picked up his bag and started for the door, having said her piece, Spot supposed. The whole room had actually gone kind of quiet, and the rest of the table of teachers was looking at the three of them now.

Race made brief eye contact with Spot, looking apologetic for a moment before turning toward the door. He flashed the peace sign over his head and pushed the door open. “Have fun, kids.”

With that, the door swung shut behind him, and Spot was still standing there with Katherine, eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the door Race had walked out of.

After a beat, Katherine let out a long sign and turned back to Spot. “I’m sorry about all that, I can get you reassigned-where are you going?”

Spot had started hastily shoving his things into his bag before throwing it on, feeling giddy with something akin to excitement all the sudden. “Out.”

When he quickly moved toward the door, he heard Katherine let out a bitter, surprised laugh from behind him. 

“You can’t just leave,” she said, “it’s the middle of the hour, and your grade isn’t up-”

The door shutting cut her off, and Spot was standing alone in the hallway all the sudden, grinning like an idiot. He knew walking out of a class wasn’t really praised though, and he started walking quickly, turning into the next hallway and kept going until he hit a bathroom.

Honestly, he didn’t know why he even left, something about Race leaving had set him off in a weird way and then he was just gone; it was strange, really. But, when he rounded the corner into the bathroom, it wasn’t really that strange at all. 

Race was leaned against the wall next to the sinks, scrolling absentmindedly through his phone, still sipping his coffee. When Spot walked in, he looked up and his face lit up.

“Hey! Did you bail too?”

Spot nodded shrugging his bag off and onto the floor. “Yeah, your whole ‘Vive la révolution’ thing was really inspiring.”

“I bet, Race said with a breathy laugh. “God I’m actually glad they kicked me out, I hated it there. I haven’t eaten lunch in like, three years.”

Spot’s draw dropped at that, and Race stared at him with a grin. 

“What?”

“What do you mean,  _ what _ ?” Spot asked, incredulous. “You haven’t been eating lunch for  _ three years _ ?”

Race shrugged, not all that concerned it seemed. “Nah, I’m not that hungry, anyway.”

Without another word, Spot unzipped his bag and crouched down, digging through it for the brown paper bag on the bottom. Race had moved closer while he was looking for it, and when he finally pulled it out they were about six inches apart. 

“What’s that?” Race asked, neck craning to look into the bag. 

“Lunch,” Spot stated. He reached in and pulled out a sandwich, normally he had leftovers, but his mom had worked late, so he threw something together right before he left this morning. “Here, we can split it.”

Race shook his head, trying to wave him off. “Oh, no, I don’t want to take your food.”

“Not asking,” Spot said, breaking the sandwich into crude halves and passing one of them to Race. “No wonder you’re always so tired, you don’t eat enough.”

Rolling his eyes, Race bit into the sandwich, dropping his shoulders and moaning through his bite. “Oh my god, this is so good.”

Spot snorted and started in on his own half. “God your standards are low, usually I have rice or chicken or something better.”

Race shook his head at that, and for the next fifteen minutes or so they ate through the rest of what Spot had, eventually just sitting on the bathroom floor with their backs against the wall, knees knocking together every so often. 

When the bell rang, they both looked up in surprise, Race standing before Spot and throwing the brown lunch bag into the trash. 

“Damn, thanks for that, man,” he said, reaching a hand down to help Spot up, which he accepted. “It was really good.”

“Low standards,” Spot quipped as he grabbed his bag from the floor.

Once they both had all their stuff, they both lingered for a second, Spot remembering that Race wasn’t going to be tutoring him anymore, and feeling that little pain in his chest. 

Oddly enough, Race started playing on his phone, which he never did, and Spot took it as a hint to get going. But, when he turned for the door, Race reached out and caught his wrist, holding out his phone expectantly. 

“Hey, uh, you can put your number in if you want,” he said, blowing a stray piece of hair out of his face. “We can get real food, or whatever you call it.”

Trying and failing to keep a grin off his face, Spot took the phone and added his name and number. “Yeah, there’s a Puerto Rican place down the street from me, it’ll blow your mind.”

Race took his phone back and smiled lightly at the screen. “I bet, well, talk to you later, then.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

They both parted then, Spot hanging back as Race left the bathroom first. He was smiling like an idiot, catching sight of a freshman that walked in and dropped it just as quick. 

As he entered the hallway he heard a ding and reached into his pocket to look at his phone. He grinned when he read the message. 

 

_ (212) 867-5309:  _ _ Vive la révolution!! (it’s race btw) _

 

_ Spot Conlon: gotta work on some better catch phrases _

 

_ Racetrack Higgins: yeah, whatever, food guy _

 

Spot almost laughed out loud at that, and probably ran into six or seven people on the way to his next class. Worth it though. One hundred percent worth it. 

**Author's Note:**

> sup fam, hope u liked this bad boy!!! leave kudos/comment if u did maybe???


End file.
